Springfield narcotics officer tells of alcohol, meth, kids

Mom accused of endangering daughters

Oct. 24, 2013

Megan Caldwell

Written by

Ronald Hubbard

When he was dispatched to a rental property early Tuesday, Springfield narcotics officer Chris Rasmussen had already worked about 100 meth labs.

An anonymous tipster said several people were manufacturing meth in the vacant house on Mount Vernon Street. Two young girls were there, too.

Officers had already arrested nine people by the time Rasmussen arrived.

He and another officer donned protective gear and entered the house where the girls, ages 4 and 6, had just been removed.

What they found and what they were told provide a peephole into a dangerous problem facing Missouri children that police in Springfield have been highlighting for years.

The house was “very dirty,” Rasmussen noted in court documents. He could smell a strong chemical odor — like that of a meth lab — piercing his respirator mask.

On the first floor, he noticed a crib. On the floor next to the crib was a mostly empty can of Enfamil powdered baby formula.

Inside the crib, the documents say, was an opened cold pack. After six years in the narcotics section, Rasmussen has learned that meth cooks often use ammonium nitrate found in cold packs.

In a large room on the second floor, the officer said he found several 2-liter bottles and rubber tubing.

Used coffee filters were on top of a dresser, along with unused syringes and plastic bags filled with an unknown clear liquid, the documents say.

Many items were peppered with a granular blue residue. Rasmussen said he used a field kit to test the stuff — positive for methamphetamine, he noted.

He opened another bag to test the contents, but smoke began to roll out. He backed off and had all of the suspected meth-making material safely removed from the house.

Then Rasmussen went to the Greene County Jail, where the nine people found in the home were being held. The young girls had been taken to stay with their grandmother.

Rasmussen wrote in court documents what he said he learned at the jail.

Ronald Hubbard, a 44-year-old homeless man, told the officer that he had been staying at the house — without permission — for a few days.

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Hubbard said that on Monday afternoon, he was asked by Megan Caldwell to watch her children while she went home to take a shower.

He couldn’t remember exactly when that happened because, he said, he was really drunk.

He also was too drunk to be concerned by the strong chemical odor wafting through the home.

Hubbard also said, according to the officer’s report, that he had used meth earlier that night at Park Central Square.

Hubbard had agreed to watch the children as they played in the living room.

Then around 6 or 7 that evening — again, he couldn’t say for sure — Hubbard, the two young girls and others went upstairs to sleep.

Upstairs was a room shared by a couple, Shane Minor and Shaya Holloway, according to the documents.

They had been staying there a couple of days.

Rasmussen spoke to Minor next. He said he didn’t have anything to do with the alleged meth lab components found in the upstairs room they had been staying in — maybe it was the people who had lived there previously, Minor offered, according to the documents.

Minor also said he didn’t notice a strong chemical smell — he, too, was drunk, the documents say.

Finally, Rasmussen interviewed Caldwell, the mother of the two girls.

She said Hubbard told her he had rented the house. Caldwell’s utilities had been shut off at her house, and Hubbard’s place was warm.

She said she never noticed the meth lab smell, according to the documents.

Rasmussen asked: “Do you feel it was safe to leave your kids with several individuals that were all admittedly highly intoxicated?”

She didn’t answer.

The officer told her about the suspected meth lab components he had found.

Caldwell insisted her children were never in danger.

According to statistics provided by Missouri Children’s Division, at least 687 children were exposed to a meth lab in Missouri in 2012.

Caldwell was charged Tuesday in Greene County court with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Hubbard, Minor and Holloway have been charged with burglary and meth manufacturing.

The other five occupants of the house are not believed to have been involved in the alleged meth activity.